Do not Hate, Live and Let Live

“O Agniveer, Why don’t you focus only on good points of your own faith. Why do you spread hatred against other faiths?”
“Agniveer, Don’t spew venom against other religions. Live and let live.”
“Agniveer is *******. They have a hate agenda.”
“Agniveer is anti-Islamic. They hate Muslims.”
“Agniveer has some decent intellectual stuff, but I’m a bit wary of them because of how much proselytism AGAINST other religions they do. I try and be a live and let live person, so I just ignore such things.”
and so on.
These represent a small sampler of a large number of feedback we have been receiving these days through mails, comments, tweets, facebook etc. This seems to be a perception issue that we would prefer to address promptly.
So we thought it would be appropriate to review these allegations rationally once more. Hopefully we would be more effective in explaining our thought process this time.
Q: Agniveer, why do you hate other religions?
A:
1. We believe in only one religion for entire humanity – religion of humanity as guided by Vedas. This is also called Hinduism. Regardless of whether one consciously follows or not, this is the real religion driving all rational/ tolerant/ compassionate human beings. So there actually exists no ‘other religion’ for us. And there exists no specific ‘my religion’ to preach! What is commonly called religion is simply a set of specific assumptions believed as given by a group of people regardless of its actual veracity. Assumptions are necessary for humans to survive and focus on more relevant things. But equally important is the skill to question assumptions in order to have more rational assumptions. We do try to do so at times, but only in the same manner as Galileo questioned the assumption of Gravity being proportional to weight and Kepler questioning the assumption of sun revolving round the earth.
Thus if Agniveer is guilty of this treason, so were the likes of Galileo, Einstein, Kepler and Newton. We know that Galileo was punished for his ‘blasphemous’ views because society had not evolved enough to place rationality ahead of everything else. If Agniveer is also condemned for same reason, then perhaps society needs to evolve further.
2. In the Vedic Dharma of Agniveer, there is no place for hatred. In fact, rising above feelings of hate, frustration, lust and lying is mandatory immediate goal of life so as to be eligible for higher goals. Thus whatever we say or write is devoid of any feeling of hatred. We simply try to be truthful and polite to our family members. (Entire humanity is one single family as per Vedas.)
However if we have inadvertently hurt any sentiments, we humbly apologize to our brothers and sisters. And request them to specify the exact reference so that we can rectify the mistake.
Q: Don’t give an elated speech full of moral hyperboles. Your site is focused on condemning other religions.
A:
1. The bulk of articles on the site are related to better understanding of Vedic concepts and addressing some of the popular myths surrounding them. Then there are articles on History, Freedom Fighters, Health, Sanskrit, Women Issues, Motivation, Inspiration and other secular subjects. These form the overwhelmingly major portion of the site.
2. We know that morality is becoming a hyperbole these days owing to abject materialism or headless superstitions. So while we don’t take such usages adversely, we do focus to put our bit to make morality appear more relevant for today’s world. That brings an additional focus on Vedas which we believe to be one of the best treatise on practical morality.
3. We do not condemn any religion and believe in respect for all view-points even though we may differ at times. We do not consider it wrong in any manner to rationally discuss similarities and differences in a friendly manner as we do in a family. This may at best be called “constructive analysis”.
Why religion, in all fields of knowledge there are multiple viewpoints. Experts of all these fields critically analyze each others’ viewpoint rationally and dispassionately. There are huge number of theories regarding origin of life, origin of consciousness, origin of universe, fundamental properties of matter/ energy etc. Its only through a process of critical analysis and mutual discussions that we arrive at better understanding. This is the core essence of scientific spirit. Only fanatics would associate irrelevant emotions with this process.
Q: Why don’t you respect all faiths, live and let live?
1. Suppose you start a school and teach the students that earth is flat and thunder happens when a person on sky sneezes. Would the government approve or allow your curriculum? Would you not consider it to be in spirit of science and rationality that one logically explains the fallacies of these theories?
Now if I state that these theories of flat earth and sneezing thunder come from a book that I consider to be religious, will that change the reality? Tomorrow I can assert that Harry Potters is my religious book and I be allowed to teach witchcraft in my school. Further all people should be banned from questioning witchcraft. No rational person would sanction such views.
All that Agniveer may have stated is that if any book has content that is blatantly against established science and logic, then it cannot be considered perfect. Does it not sound rational? And should this rationality change only because 80% of people of tribal Africa believe in this book or its ideas? Or because Harry Potters is a bestseller?
2. Further to this, because we consider creation of assumptions to be a natural trait of humans, we don’t condemn anyone or any group merely because of these assumptions. We may at times politely mention the logical fallacies, but would ensure that we do so with respect and sensitivity. We ensure we do not make it personal or associate any adverse emotions with this.
3. However we do and we would continue to very strongly condemn those people or groups of people who believe in any one or more of the following:
– all the people who do not believe in what they believe would be doomed in Hell forever, regardless of howsomuch noble or good they are.
– its their divine goal to coerce people to embrace their beliefs by force, fear or fraud.
– any person who was earlier in their group but has now left the group deserves to be killed under charge of apostasy.
– people who do not believe in what they believe deserve inferior rights in life even though they are peaceful and tolerant.
– women are less intelligent than men and hence deserve unequal social and political rights.
– certain people are born superior and deserve better rights from birth and others are inferior owing to birth in an inferior family.
Regardless of whether such people claim to be Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Atheist, Communist or whatever, we shall always strive to destroy this blind fanaticism.We believe all rational minds of the world would also do the same in spirit of human rights, tolerance and equality. That is all Agniveer is trying to do.
Q: Don’t lie. You have so many articles against Islam. Agniveer is an anti-Islam site.
A: We do not condemn the original Quran because we have not read it. We believe original Quran is lost but do respect sentiments of those who do not consider so. However we condemn those available Quran and its translations that smell of one of the 6 points raised in previous answer and those people who believe so. We also condemn those non-Quranic texts like Hadiths and Tafseers that denigrate spirit of tolerance. And why we, many Muslim scholars have condemned the same. For example, refer to Dual Islam by Dr Ghulam Jilani Barq, the eminent Islamic scholar of Pakistan.
– Thus all our articles on Islam are targeted ONLY towards that version of Islam which has one of these 6 defects. This being a very prominent group these days, we had to put extra effort to thwart their ideology.
– There is nothing new that we have presented here. All our works are based on works of erstwhile and contemporary Islamic scholars.
– However if we have a Muslim or Quran lover who refuses to believe in the above 6 points, we have highest respect for them and our articles are not applicable to them.
For example, Ashfaqullah Khan, the great freedom fighter and a devout Muslim is a role model for us. We have a detailed article dedicated to him.
We may still have intellectual differences with them, but that is true between every two human beings even in same family and even among twins. It is not called hatred. It is called diversity.
Q: If you indeed respect tolerant Muslims, why do you ask them to embrace Vedic Dharma? Why this effort on proselytism?
A: This sounds of hypocrisy. A Mother Teresa gets a Nobel Prize for her missionary work aimed specifically at promoting Christianity and Agniveer is condemned for promoting Vedas!
1. We refuse to use force, coercion or fraud to convince anyone to believe in Vedas or embrace Vedic Dharma. We simply state the facts and share our views, which is a fundamental right. Every company sells its product. Pepsi asks you to drink its health-hazard and Coke will sell its own because some model smiles after drinking it. This is called unethical marketing in our view because they sell a harmful product on hype devoid of logic. Still that is considered ethical by everyone. We even idolize the cricketers and actors who act in these ads even though we know they are indulging in blatant falsehood.
But when an Agniveer refutes all allegations on Vedas, establishes the noble message of Vedas, proves that Vedas are unchangeable and oldest texts of humankind, and urges people to imbibe Vedic values if they appeal to them, this is called proselytism!
We call it honesty.
2. We do not consider Vedic Dharma to be a separate cult or religion. We consider it to be a natural property of all rational beings. We have stated multiple times that anyone who is rational and honest is Vedic in that perspective. The only prerequisite to be Vedic is to “Accept Truth and Reject Falsehood to best of their abilities and inner voice.”
If this is proselytism, we are only doing what all schools in world do, albeit more emphatically.
Q: Why then do you ask Muslims to convert to Hinduism?
A:
1. We did mention this in a few articles on Women Issues more from a practical and legal standpoint. Due to misdeeds of many Islamic representatives and their false preachings, women rights have been legally curtailed as per Islamic laws of most countries. Women don’t have divorce rights and many countries have completely stopped applications for even request for divorce from Muslim women. Further, believers in Hadiths and false translations of Qurans actually consider women to be inferior and insult women. We have cited purely from available translated texts of Islam as published by major publication houses of Islam and endorsed/ promoted by their prominent leaders.
We thus recommend that a woman should not marry any person who himself believes or supports a group that considers women as inferior and has a history of gender discrimination and torture. Thus a practical option for such couples to allay any future concerns would be to marry as per Hindu Family law that ensures these problems do not arise.
However this is only a recommendation and not a binding, purely from perspective of gender rights.
2. Further, many Muslims are unnecessarily targeted and doubted for their patriotism and tolerance because of bad deeds of terrorists and their mentors aka fanatic preachers of Islam. This problem has reached an alarming situation today. For such people also, it is better to either embrace Hinduism/ Vedic Dharma or announce vocally that they strongly condemn all those books/ translations/ people/ groups that believe in following:
– all the people who do not believe in what they believe would be doomed in Hell forever, regardless of howsomuch noble or good they are.
– its their divine goal to coerce people to embrace their believes by force, fear or fraud.
– any person who was earlier in their group but has now left the group deserves to be killed under charge of apostasy.
– people who do not believe in what they believe deserve inferior rights in life even though they are peaceful and tolerant.
– women are less intelligent than men and hence deserve unequal social and political rights.
– certain people are born superior and deserve better rights from birth and others are inferior owing to birth in an inferior family.
They should demand their religious leaders to clearly state their stand on above and condemn each of these vocally and clearly. Else they should quit that religious group in interest of humanity.
Note that because Vedic Dharma aka Hinduism is oldest religion of all human beings, and all humans are Vedic in some way or other, one should embrace Vedic Dharma proactively. A Muslim, Christian, Jew etc has to be Vedic in some aspect or other, but a Vedic follower need not follow any of these and may simply be a good man. The only prerequisite to be Vedic is to “Accept Truth and Reject Falsehood to best of their abilities and inner voice.”
So all rational ones should accept this universal natural religion.
This alone is the conversion that we seek.
We don’t ask anyone to deliberately quit their religion and adopt our ideology blindly. We instead appeal to all to respect Vedic Dharma. This was the religion of our ancestors, is most rational and tolerant and relevant for all human beings. So regardless of what else we believe in, at least be proud of our glorious heritage.
Nonetheless, even if one still disagrees, we respect his or her right to have his or her own set of assumptions in life. There is no fraud, force or coercion here. Only a very humble appeal to our loved family members.
Q: Why do you write against Zakir Naik so much then?
A:
1. It is the Zakir version of Islam that we vociferously condemn. Instead of cutting the branches, we believe in targeting the root. Zakir Naik being a mentor of terrorist mindset (and a very popular one) ,we are targeting that to offer our bit to destroy terrorism.
2. Zakir Naik as an individual is not our target. He is just one of the faces of a more fanatic mindset and mafia behind, that we intend to destroy through rationality and compassion.
3. Zakir Naik is a terrorist for us because he openly claims that all who quit Islam and propagate any other faith should be killed. He also believes that regardless of their good deeds, all non-Muslims shall burn in Hell forever. He considers that a man can marry again without taking previous wife’s permission unless specifically mentioned in a contract! He believes women should not be allowed bulk of professions except a few ones. Even women doctors (except gynecologists) are haram for him! Thus his fanatic stand coupled with anti-women ideology makes him a threat for society as per our views.
Thus we have a series of articles exposing his fanaticism. But this is only Zakir Islam. Interestingly, the most popular article on the site is “Why Muslims hate Zakir Naik so much” for which we have received accolades from lot many rational Muslims.
Q: Why do you condemn Prophet Muhammad then?
A:
While we personally do not believe in any Prophets or miracles, kindly cite one single article where we have condemned Muhammad.
We have indeed condemned those texts in Hadiths, Tafsirs and dubious translations of Quran that claim many bad things about Muhammad. Why only we, many eminent Muslim scholars have condemned it.
Q: Why are you against Christians then?
A:
1. Its a well-known fact that there is no original Bible. We have questioned only that sect of Christians that consider in fraudulent conversions and believes in only their brand of Christianity to be the way to some curious Heaven. In other words, we condemn only that brand of Christianity which believes in one or more of following:
– all the people who do not believe in what they believe would be doomed in Hell forever, regardless of howsomuch noble or good they are.
– its their divine goal to coerce people to embrace their believes by force, fear or fraud.
– any person who was earlier in their group but has now left the group deserves to be killed under charge of apostasy.
– people who do not believe in what they believe deserve inferior rights in life even though they are peaceful and tolerant.
– women are less intelligent than men and hence deserve unequal social and political rights.
– certain people are born superior and deserve better rights from birth and others are inferior owing to birth in an inferior family.
For others, we have no issues, except intellectual debates. These other tolerant groups may ignore our articles if the above points are not applicable to them.
2. Since most Christian societies take criticism in spirit and have liberalized significantly in this regard, they do not represent a threat like fanatic people in Zakir Islam. So we have only a small number of articles on them. And most of them have been written from works of respected scholars in Christian societies!
3. We are no way against Christians. In fact, on Love Jihad issue, we are working with Christians together in many areas like Kerala.
But yes, if the above criteria of tolerance are flouted, we, as responsible citizens, have right to question that specific group and thwart their malicious designs – be it Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Communist or whosoever.
Q: Why do you condemn Sufis then? They stood for peace and brotherhood.
A:
1. We have no objection to any school of thought based on peace, tolerance and brotherhood. If Sufis categorically state that all non-Muslims are also welcomed in Paradise if they do good deeds otherwise and that apostates have their rights to condemn Islam if they do so rationally, then we have highest respect for their love for human rights.
2. However, we have presented historical facts that role of several so-called Sufi saints like Chisti and Gazi Miyan was detrimental to national interest. We being rational beings, discard all stories of miracles as either cheap publicity stunts concocted by certain followers or cases of petty illusions. Almost all scientists and rationally guided educated people of world would agree with us on this. Cutting out this superstitious and miracle chaff, if we review the stories of Chisti and Gazi Miyan, we find that they supported the invaders. Gazi Miyan was himself an invader! So there is no way we can admire these and patriots like Ashfaqullah at the same time.
3. There have been many other Sufi poets and saints. We have high regard for their efforts towards universal brotherhood and devotion, whenever they acted in national interest. So we do not condemn Sufism in general. But we do question specific persons supposed to be Sufis who acted like agents of invaders or invaders themselves. This is not condemnation but constructive nationalist humanist analysis.
If someone can provide historical facts that they were not so and that they pass our 6 point test of tolerance and equality, we would be keen to change our stand on these individuals also.
4. By the way, Sufis are not under threat from Agniveer. Agniveer would rather enjoy their music and poems! The real threat comes from Jihadi or Wahabi Muslims who have been blowing Sufi shrines for years and more aggressively recently and Zakir Naik who considers Sufis as performing major sins. Agniveer would rather attempt to thwart such fanatic designs to blow up places, kill and hate.
Q: Why do you hate all Muslim rulers of history? What do you justify destruction of Babri Masjid? Is this not spread of hatred and venom?
A:
1. We have mentioned very clearly that none of these Muslim rulers had anything to do with Islam except for political benefit. Almost each and every Muslim ruler was a disgrace to humanity – Hindus and Muslims alike. This is view of even most eminent Muslim historians. Hassan Nisar states that we should not confuse Islam with Islamic history and Muslim masses with Muslim rulers.
2. We have provided evidences from the established books of history that the likes of Babur, Akbar, Shahjahan, Aurangzeb, Khilji, Ghazni, Qasim etc were literally butchers. Thus any monument constructed by them (if at all they constructed! Most such monuments were old monuments captured by them or built by demolishing places of worships of Hindus.) is a disgrace to humanity in general and more of a disgrace to Muslims.
3. We justify destruction of Babri Masjid because Babur was a homosexual and that is haram as per Islam. Further he was a mass murderer, drug addict and most inhuman person of his time. If Osama bin Laden deserves being hated, Babur deserves it even more.
Hence we justify destruction of this symbol of shame which is not a mosque in first place. Its only out of political conspiracy that so much of hue and cry is being raised over this fraud monument. We have many Muslim friends who have volunteered to build Ram temple there as their mark of respect from a national hero like Ram and to dissociate themselves from butchers like Babur and Aurangzebs who had nothing to do with Islam except demeaning it. We respect their sentiments.
Q: Why do you not condemn Gujarat riots of 2002?
A:
Who said so? We condemn every act of violence where innocents are killed. Be it Godhra, or post-Godhra riots, or Kashmir carnages, or bomb blasts in Pakistan, or fights in Somalia or Akbar’s loot of Chittor or Babur killing Afghans. Anyone indulging in or instigating violence over innocents is a psychopath as per our views. We fail to understand that from where did this notion creep up that we do not condemn Gujarat riots!
All we said once perhaps was that we consider media to be one of the biggest culprits in instigating Gujarat riots and sensationalizing it to cause hatred among communities.
Q: Why do you focus so much on religion?
A: Religion is not at all our focus. Our focus is rational tolerant humanity. Since religion forms a basic driving force for most of us and cause of major problems facing the earth, we humbly attempt to address this. Most of us would exhibit relatively high levels of rationality and criticality in other aspects of life like finances, economics, education, job, etc. But when it comes to religion, they would shut their minds and accept even the most bizarre serving on their plate without any questioning. This exceptional treatment of religious issues by masses has led to nurture of a whole big cartel of religious businessmen who would present anything that serves their selfish purpose in a religious packaging.
This, perhaps emanates from the wish of each of us to live beyond the death and our inability to comprehend the fundamental questions – Who we are? Where we came from? Where would we go?
Thus we see that almost all major problems facing the world are primarily caused because they are packaged as ‘religious’ and most people hence do not even question these. Here are a few examples of nuisances due to religious packaging and perhaps hardly any nuisance is left out which is more serious:
– Terrorism to achieve blessings of divine, destroy non-believers and avenge earlier damages
– Population growth as divine order
– Refusal to spread scientific education because that contradicts our religious teachings
– Hatred towards ‘others’ because they do not believe in what ‘we’ believe in
– Birth-based caste discrimination because our religion says ‘we’ were born superior
– Gender discrimination because our religion says that women are inferior and have lesser rights and scope of growth
– Wasteful spendings on pleasing the divine and trying to showcase ‘our religion’ is better
– Damage to environment
Then there are nuisances because many people turn completely atheists and refuse to believe in Law of Consequences of Actions (Law of Karma) out of frustration with existing religious packages. This abject materialism breeds another set of nuisances:
– Lack of accountability and urge to maximize selfish gains because ‘I live for myself and shall die one day’
– Prostitution and Adultery – because I must enjoy whatever way I can
– Erosion of ethical and moral values
– Commoditization of Women
– Tendency to fool people for short term gains – like the corporate-media-political- entertainment-sports mafia
– Feelings of depression, loneliness and emptiness causing huge number of other problems
– Alcoholism, drug abuse
– Damage to environment
In brief, because of either misuse of religion or rejection of spiritualism, 99% of the problems of the world exist. Only 1% issues like Tsunami and Earthquakes would remain to be tackled if we are able to address these problems which have a source in religion.
Thus we attempt to instill a sense of healthy inquisitiveness towards religion – the most dominating force of humankind today – and evolve to a stage where religion no more remains a source of problems but a source of spiritual strength. Hence our focus on religion.
Having said this, religion is still a minor focus for us. Secular topics like Health, Inspiration, Self-help, History, Nationalism, Global Vision and Education leading to Rational Spiritualism is our primary focus to which religion should evolve as end destination.
Q: Why are there so many hate-comments on your site?
A:
1. Kindly cite example of even one hate-comment from admins.
2. We believe in freedom of speech and hence allow everyone to express themselves.
3. We neither believe in comment policing nor have redundant resources to allocate on it. Only rarely do we moderate comments and most of the moderation is automatic based on certain in-built rules. Thus even adverse comments can creep in into the system. But as mature netizens, instead of worrying about them, we should take them in spirit. Truth cannot be scuttled by vague comments. And freedom of expression is the cornerstone of Internet discussions.
4. As a matter of fact, the number of hateful comments AGAINST Agniveer or its ideology overwhelm number of comments spewing hatred on other groups. Our rules are such that bulk of comments that denigrate other groups are automatically banned but comments AGAINST Agniveer are rarely blocked unless having a vulgar word.
5. If you think we should add a few more blacklisted words or rules to block certain obnoxious comments, please write to us. If its technically possible, we shall be keen to improve our existing rule base.
6. If there is a specific comment that is currently on site but deserves being moderated, please send us the hyperlink. We shall review it. (Only if we get only a few such requests. Otherwise it becomes a logistical nightmare)
We are not at all responsible for comments made by visitors.  Often comment sections turn into debate grounds, and in a way we support that. Because that leads to appreciation of truth.
We can only request all to desist from irrelevant comments and maintain respect and dignity while commenting. After all we all are one family!
Q: What if I am able to show excerpts from your articles that spew hatred or demean others?
A: Kindly inform us. If we have erred somewhere, we shall immediately make any corrections proactively. We carried out this appeal several times before also when such allegations were raised. But we have received not one single example of where we have written something that is not factual and is full of hatred instead. Hopefully we shall get these examples this time.
Q: What if I can refute your stand?
A: Please feel free to publish any rebuttals to our stand. There are already several sites that specifically counter the articles on Agniveer. We encourage this because this leads to more critical evaluation and judgment of truth.
Many challenge us to counter their rebuttals to our articles. Please note that it is humanly impossible for us to counter every other challenge. Everyone is requested to discuss them with a very active and extremely intellectual group of visitors on Agniveer and enlighten us all.
However, unfortunately, most of the rebuttals so far were merely emotional outbursts devoid of reasonable logic. We expect to have more rational rebuttals that can impress well-educated and intellectual minds and scientific brains. This would help us improve upon and amend the content to provide a more rational standpoint.
In summary, entire world is one single family for all of us. We love all in same manner as we love our brothers and sisters. Our aim is to promote rational humanity and this sense of ‘one family’ across all.
When someone is not part of your family, you may choose to ignore what they do even if that is harmful for them. But for your family members, you would always seek their benefits even if that causes you some inconvenience personally. This also does not mean that you would meddle with individual personal lives and force your own views on your family members. This simply means that you shall humbly state your views, respect your family members’ right to accept or reject your views but you shall always seek their well-being in heart, regardless of how they take your views. And when need arises, you shall be willing to do worthwhile actions for their well-being.
This is the spirit with which we have taken Agniveer mission. We hope that with everyone’s cooperation and support, this would be a success. And each of us would be an Agniveer in the truest sense of the word.
If you have any other doubts or concerns, please let us know so that we can address that as well.
Om Shantih Shantih Shantih
May Peace, Tolerance and Compassion prevail across all living beings for each other!